Julian Mayo wrote:Mfer do champ/irl drivers look on F1 as the pinnacle of motor-racing, and aspire to get there, or do they have a more parochial attitude and see their series as being at least as good as F1 ?
Most young Australian drivers look on F1 as the top rung in Motor sport, but because of the truck loads of cash required, settle for what they can get.
Im curious as to how much ambition to make F1 Patrick really would have.
She is in a good team, making good money, and racing in her homeland.
Whereas Legge is from the UK and probably flies home midweek for a "chip sanger".
2-part posting, Julian.....
1}I believe they do look at F1 as the pinnacle of motorsports and would love to race there eventually, but most also see how long it takes to get through into F1 and so they generally view F1 as a long-term dream, but view either major AOWR series as a long-term goal, and thus, to an extent, work on getting there. But, increasingly, like with some of the backmarker F1 teams, some of the mid-pack IRL/Champ teams are looking at drivers who can bring talent
and/or money to the table, as opposed to talent alone.
2}Back in 2000, when Patrick finished 2nd at the FF festival, she caught the eye of a lot of F1 officials(Ron Dennis at McLaren, Bernie Ecclestone, Bobby Rahal when he was at Jaguar) among others. Had Rahal not been dropped from the head office at jaguar back in 2001, it's likely Danica might've indeed gotten a test with an F3 or F3000 team(the two most likely test were with either a Renault or McLaren-backed team) and she might just gotten a shot at F1(in a couple of interviews from that time, she made it clear that F1
was her primary goal then.) But's it also no secret that she's also interested in sportscar racing, as well; she does have one ALMS start(Road Atlanta, 2003; finished 11th overall/4th in GT1 driving a Ferrari 550 Maranello for Prodrive Racing) to her credit, and talk in the ALMS paddock is that Rahal may return to Sebring this March(it's just talk, but you never know these days....) and tap Patrick to drive in the 12 Hrs. there.(Other drivers in the ALMS, including Intersport Racing's Liz Halliday, have made inquiries on that, but nothing's come up so far) As far as currently......I do wonder how she would have done had Rahal-Letterman Racing not had all those mechanical woes and snakebit luck this year, but those are the brakes in racing....Make no mistake, though; I think the road to F1 is still open for her; she's just going to have to step up her game next year.
ahem 
